‘The Americans’ Star Matthew Rhys Sticks Up For His Character at Season 4 Premiere

FX premiered the fourth season of its award-winning drama “The Americans” Saturday night at New York University’s Skirball Theater, with an after-party held at the Italian restaurant Cipriani.

“The Americans” follows the lives of Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, a suburban couple in the ’80s that are secretly undercover KGB agents working to bring down America. Creator Joe Weisberg, a former CIA officer, and fellow exec producer Joel Fields, have been balancing family drama, historical themes, shocking twists, brutal action scenes and twisty espionage plots for four years now. But despite their close working relationship, it turns out that there is still one key issue about the series that they disagree on.

“I think Joel is still not on board with this after four years and it’s our one active bone of contention,” Weisberg told Variety on the red carpet at the premiere. “I think you are supposed to root for the KGB.”

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Joel doesn’t see it that way. “I think when the show works, you are supposed to root for Philip and Elizabeth, and that’s very different than rooting for the KGB,” he said. “There is something about seeing the other, the enemy, as a human being, which I think is very rich, but I think that doesn’t mean we’re trying to convince anybody that the KGB was the right way to go.”

“I didn’t say that,” Weisberg said. “I didn’t say the KGB was the right way to go, but once you’re rooting for Philip and Elizabeth, you’re rooting for the KGB.”

“No, no, I disagree,” Fields retorted, before joking to Variety, “And you can write in brackets, ‘Joel punched Joe.'”

Without giving too much away, the season finds Kelly AuCoin‘s Pastor Tim becoming a central threat, which was a surprise to the actor, who didn’t initially think he would survive the episode where his character was introduced. “When I was reading the script, Philip came into the church with his killing gloves on. I was surprised as it happened.” Dylan Baker also joins the series as a biochemical warfare scientist; the role required a scene where his character is spit on “quite a few times,” he said with a laugh. “And it was of course at night, exterior in New York which is always fun, because it’s always freezing in some way or another.”

Much of season four is driven by the internal conflict of the Jennings’ daughter Paige, played Holly Taylor, who at the end of the last season told Pastor Tim about her parents’ double life. “She’s very confused as to whether she should trust her parents — she’s grown up with them all these years and they’ve never done anything to hurt her,” Taylor said. “So she has that reason to trust them, but at the same time, she doesn’t know how to do that anymore because she’s lost a sense of who they are.”

Weisberg and Fields are so deeply committed to historical accuracy that they consult a calendar to make sure that the television programs the characters watch did, in fact, air on the date an episode takes place. So while they occasionally joke about letting the Russians win the Cold War, as they’ve begun planning the end game for the series they’ve strived to stay as truthful as possible. They’ve recently begun planning the end, and Fields thinks they will do “five or six” seasons in total.

Matthew Rhys, who plays Philip, says that even though the Russians lose the Cold War, it doesn’t necessarily mean his character can’t have a happy ending. “If he defected to the Americans they could all live happily ever after,” he said. “I hope it (happens). I don’t want to go to prison.”

But while Philip has killed several innocent people and committed plenty of terrible acts in the name of Mother Russia, Rhys said he never views the character as evil “for the sole reason that he’s not going out killing people just for kicks. He’s serving a very strict mandate from a higher authority, and if he doesn’t, he’ll go to prison and he won’t see his kids again,” he said. “So his motivation for what he does is incredibly pure.”

I agree with “a fan” Weisberg is wrong. I think the KGB was ugly and ruthless and as an American who grew up in that atmosphere, I can strongly say that I’m offended by his attitude about it. I don’t mind rooting for the couple, in a sense, but even then the acts they commit are treasonous. I can see their point of view and I don’t mind that part. I just don’t want them to expect me to align myself with that. The Soviet ideology was a complete and utter failure. Elizabeth’s irrational patriotism to its failures makes her seem even more irrational.

I love the show though. I love the characters, even if Elizabeth annoys the crap out of me. I love how the ideology between Philip and Elizabeth differ so much. Philip is no longer a Soviet patriot but stays in it only for love. That’s so real and believable that I can’t help but like the man. I just find myself saying over and over again that he can do better. ;) Granted, Elizabeth is trying to be more empathetic. I use trying loosely here because when her husband was having a problem, she was so obsessed with being anti-American that her attention preferred listening to Reagan rather than her husband. I just want to slap her sometimes.

All in all, I love the show, but never EVER ask me to side with the KGB. That is a terrible insult and shame on Weisberg for being so stupid to believe that we should.

Oh and I want to add that I love the actress Keri Russell and I think her portrayal of Elizabeth is stunning. I just don’t much care for Elizabeth. I only care for her because Philip loves her. I love Philip, even if he’s wrong in doing what he’s doing.

I think Weisberg is wrong. Rooting for the marriage is not the same as rooting for the KGB. The show is best when the dynamics of the marriage and family are in conflict with their duties to the KGB. The right way for this series to end is to pit the sanctity of their family against their loyalty to their country. It’s the greatest conflict that the series can ultimately generate given the stakes they have to work with. The KGB can be friend or foe, depending on the circumstances and its affect on the family. To equate rooting for the marriage with rooting for the KBG is tantamount to ignoring the show’s best dramatic engine.